Life in the local minor leagues
PART III: PITCHERS & CATCHERS
Go behind the scenes with players from Chicago Dogs, Gary SouthShore RailCats, Joliet Slammers, Kane County Cougars, Schaumburg Boomers and Windy City T-Bolts
Summertime is the best time, with memories made from tons of fun in the sun and cookouts, even trips to the beach. It’s that time of year to decompress and relax.
And wherever people pick to go on vacation, there always seems to be a minor league baseball team playing under the lights, in towns big and small across America.
The Chicago Tribune’s suburban publications cover several of those teams — infielders and outfielders, pitchers and catchers, all trying to find their way to the major leagues.
Today, in the third and final part of a weeklong three-part series, we take a look at pitchers and catchers from those six teams.
These are their stories:
Robbie Coursel, Gary SouthShore RailCats
When Robbie Coursel was in high school, he wished he could have met someone like the present-day Robbie Coursel.
“There wasn’t anyone who played professionally I could tap into as a resource to teach me what it takes to achieve those things,” he said. “I had to wing it.”
Coursel, who grew up in Michigan City in Indiana before moving to Florida for his senior year of high school, now also juggles a
player development business to help younger players prepare for their own professional careers.
Coursel pitched in college for Florida Atlantic and was drafted in the 26th round by the Pittsburgh Pirates in 2016. He joined the RailCats in 2018, with his local roots making the return to Northwest
Indiana an easy transition.
It was during those college years in Florida, though, when Coursel realized he had a passion for teaching the game to its next generation of players.
“My first time doing it came
while playing in a summer college league in Massachusetts,” he said. “And as I’ve continued to play and learn more, I found that was an area where I could add value.”
Returning to an area that was so familiar meant Coursel knew exactly where his baseball knowledge and experiences could help.
“Being local, I have a great support system here,” he said. “I can work with a lot of the local youth teams in player development. I have volunteer camps in Michigan City.
“I’m just trying to help other players open up opportunities through the game of baseball, and hopefully it does the same thing for them that it did for me.”
Michael Cruz, Gary SouthShore RailCats
Baseball always has been the less complicated part of life for catcher Michael Cruz.
Go back to 2013, when Cruz was at Clarendon, a junior college in north Texas. After Cruz received his class schedule for the first semester, he was stunned by one in particular — public speaking.
That’s because Cruz only knew Spanish at the time.
“It was like, ‘What are you doing?’ ” Cruz said. “I had to write all of these essays, and I only knew the basics of English. I couldn’t have a conversation.”
Spurred on by that class, though, he was fluent in English just six months later.
In 2016, Cruz was drafted in the seventh round by the Chicago Cubs. In September 2017, he was back home in Aguadilla, Puerto Rico, when Hurricane Maria devastated the island.
Puerto Rico is still recovering, but Cruz said the first year was especially difficult.
“I was without power for about a year,” Cruz said. “There were food shortages. … Everything was closed. That’s what made me appreciate what we have here. It’s beautiful now.”
Cruz started this season with the Salt Lake Bees — the Triple-A affiliate of the Los Angeles Angels — before joining the RailCats in April.
Although he’s physically in Gary, Cruz said his mind often ventures back to Puerto Rico, where his wife, Zuleyka, lives with their 1-year-old daughter, Ainhoa.
“It’s a mental grind every day,” Cruz said. “It’s like, you’re here, but you’re there too. And there are a lot of circumstances back home that you have to overcome.
“You have to be mentally tough for all of that. It’s not for kids.”
Tyler Jay,
Joliet Slammers
It’s been a long, difficult journey, but Tyler Jay is back in baseball and back in the Southland with the Joliet Slammers.
Jay, a Lemont graduate who played at Illinois, was taken by the Minnesota Twins as the sixth overall pick in 2015.
After some ups and downs through five seasons in the minor leagues, Jay was out of baseball entirely for over two years as he dealt with health issues and personal matters.
“I was supposed to go to spring training in 2020,” Jay said. “I was having a lot of anxiety, and I wasn’t sure what was going on. I was having a lot of eating issues where I wasn’t able to swallow food.
“I needed to take a step away for the sake of my life outside of baseball.”
Jay spent that time away rediscovering himself.
“I was able to figure it out and refuel my body,” he said. “I was kind of running on fumes there for a while. When you’re struggling and you don’t know what’s going on, you get in your head.
“I had to kind of find myself again off the field to be able to allow myself to have fun on the field and be myself out there.”
Jay, who signed June 7 with the Slammers, had pitched in six games out of the bullpen, recording two saves and a 1.50 ERA through Wednesday.
“It’s exciting,” Jay said. “It’s fun to be out here playing. There was a day where I didn’t know if this was going to happen, so this is nice.
“It just feels normal. I don’t really think too far ahead anymore. I used to do that. Now I’m able to be in the moment a lot more. I’m out there enjoying it.”
Jake Joyce, Schaumburg Boomers
Jake Joyce has experienced just about everything in his 10 years of professional baseball.
The native of Collinsville, Virginia, has been drafted, released, traded, signed and re-signed.
Despite the roller-coaster ride of emotions, though, there has never been a time he felt his baseball odyssey
wasn’t worth continuing.
“It’s simply the love and passion for the game and the competition,” Joyce said. “And the preparation is something I really enjoy doing. I love working hard at this game.”
Joyce, 30, has done a lot of that work with Schaumburg. He’s in his second year of his second stint with the team, having also pitched for the Boomers from 2015 to 2018.
Because of his longevity, Joyce has had to adapt. He now lives year-round in Wheeling.
But the days of utilizing only a fastball and curve, like he did from 2011 to 2013 at Virginia Tech, are over. He added a change-up to his arsenal early in his pro career.
“How I prepare my body is completely different from when I came out of college,” Joyce said. “It used to be long-distance running and heavy weight room work.
“Now you still want to have that core strength, but everything has turned into mobility work, getting the body unlocked and activated.”
Joyce’s changing with the times has worked, as his 2.91 ERA in 22 relief appearances can attest. Still, there’s no telling where his career goes from here.
And that’s fine with him. “Obviously, everyone’s ultimate goal is to make the big leagues, but everybody at this level knows a small percentage actually do,” he said. “I have all the confidence in myself in the world but also know that baseball is a business.
“It’s all timing and being in the right place at the right time.”
Ryan Lidge, Chicago Dogs
Throughout a stellar
career in high school at Barrington and in college at Notre Dame, Ryan Lidge experienced his share of good times playing baseball.
So when he was released by the New York Yankees after the 2019 season, it was a test for how Lidge would respond to the cutthroat side of the sport.
“It opened my eyes to say, ‘I have to change something in order to get back to where I want to go,’ ” Lidge said. “It’s a humbling experience. They said, ‘We don’t think you’re good enough.’ I had never really experienced that.”
Looking inward and engaging in consultations with his parents and Crystal Lake-based instructor Steve Peterson resulted in the current version of Lidge.
The Chicago Dogs catcher is in a better place mentally after pledging to enter 2022 in the best physical shape possible. And the results have been a home run.
Lidge, 27, was among the American Association leaders with a .358 average and had a .990 OPS, which is on-base percentage plus slugging. He’s also displaying the catching skills Lidge said initially attracted the Yankees, and he was named an All-Star.
“People who saw me play early in my career are seeing a completely different player,” said Lidge, who briefly reached Triple-A in 2019 after being drafted in the 20th round by the Yankees in 2017. “It might surprise them and they might not know why. It’s been a lot of work and a lot of listening.”
The day-to-day grind of professional baseball keeps Lidge from thinking about the future, but he’s at peace with where he’s going and where he has been.
“The game will tell you when you’re done, and it hasn’t told me that yet,” Lidge said. “If that means I finish
my career with the Dogs or in the major leagues, that’s what it’ll be.
“I love this game and can’t see myself doing anything else.”
Justin Miller, Windy City ThunderBolts
Justin Miller knows all about the highs and lows of minor league baseball.
He has experienced the joy of being signed away from the Windy City ThunderBolts by an affiliated team and the disappointment of being released.
When Miller was signed last summer by the Milwaukee Brewers, he provided the latest proof for his T-Bolts teammates there is a path to the next level.
“I think they all know you can get picked up out of here,” Miller said. “They’ve seen it happen with a few guys. Just in our pitching staff, we’ve had a few guys get picked up between 2019 and last season. They know it can happen.
“It’s just all about going out and throwing the baseball well.”
Miller is keeping the faith it can happen for him again, despite struggling in the Milwaukee organization and ending up back with Windy City. He was 3-2 with two saves and a 3.57 ERA in 23 relief appearances.
“It’s still an opportunity, and you’ve got to take everything as an opportunity,” he said. “I’m still playing the game of baseball. It does sting a little bit, but it just means I have to work harder and trust the process.”
Miller began his minor league career when he was 18. In 2016, he was drafted out of high school in the 12th round by the Philadelphia Phillies.
Now a veteran, Miller has plenty of experience of life in the minor leagues.
“The hardest part about it and the part I like most are the same thing — it’s the grind,” Miller said. “We’re out here every day, going through batting practice or throwing off the mound, putting in the work.
“We’re trying to get better every day. That’s the worst and best part about it.”
Ryan Tapani, Kane County Cougars
In April, Ryan Tapani made it to the final day of spring training with the Washington Nationals.
He was expecting to report to Triple-A Fresno and keep his career going with the organization that drafted him in the 21st round out of Creighton in 2018.
But then he received the bad news.
“The last day of camp I found out I got released,” Tapani said. “It was kind of tough. That is a bad time to get released. If it would have happened earlier, someone may have picked me up.
“I was really caught off guard when it happened and wasn’t sure what to do.”
He tried to find an opportunity with one of the 29 other MLB organizations. When that didn’t pan out, a connection from nearly 30 years ago came to the rescue.
Cougars manager George Tsamis was teammates in 1993 with Ryan’s father, Kevin, on the Minnesota Twins.
“When he got released, I reached out to him,” Tsamis said. “I was lucky enough to play with his dad. What a great guy he is.”
With the Cougars, Tapani has a 5-5 record with a 4.80 ERA over 11 starts.
After being relegated to bullpen work most of the time in the Nationals organization, he expanded his repertoire. That has led to an American Association-best 71 strikeouts to go with only 16 walks.
“I can throw all my pitches, my breaking ball and splitter, instead of just fastball-cutter,” Tapani said. “It helped my strikeout numbers. I’m not usually a strikeout guy.”
The rewards have followed. He was named the American Association’s pitcher of the week on June 13. He also was named an All-Star.
“Anytime you get nominated to an All-Star team, it’s a really cool thing and a great opportunity,” Tapani said.